Pocket Watches, Creepos, Cuddles, and Socks
by DJ The Sonic Nerd
Summary: Tucker finds a strange pocket watch lying on the ground on the way back home from the electronic store. That was all it took to set off events that would send Casper High into chaos. Post PP
1. Prologue

_**Just a head's up: This a teeny bit AU, but only to the extent that Tucker never became mayor at the end of Phantom Planet. That and Danny's secret is known throughout all of Amity Park, not just people who were in the North Pole.**_

 _ **I needed something humorous to work on while I'm in the process of rebooting one of my angsty fics for another series. For those wondering about 'Tender Love and Scare', the next chapter will be in over the weekend, most likely Saturday due to New Year's Eve.**_

 _ **With that out of the way, enjoy me unleashing the weirdness I have within my mind and I'll see you when the ride gets off.**_

Prologue

To be honest, I had no idea everything was gonna escalate so quickly.

But it did, and now we're all paying for it.

I'm looking around from my hiding place within my locker, shaking my head and trying to keep a straight face acknowledging the fact everyone's gone completely crazy because of me.

There's Dash over there, running around in circles in a fixed path and screaming something about how his teddy bears have come to life and are trying to kill everyone.

"Don't you people get it?! THEY'RE COMING! THEY'RE ALL COMING WITH THEIR PLASTIC KNIVES OF TERROR AND DESTRUCTION! WE'RE ALL GONNA GET STUFFED!"

He's been repeating that like a broken record and running around for the past hour, by the way.

Mr. Lancer's coming down the hall, dressed up like his sister and skipping along like the school isn't falling apart around him.

"EVERYDAY IS SUCH A WONDERFUL DAY…"

I shudder for that poor man, but hey, at least no one's able to record him.

Paulina's eating a bunch of tubes of chocolate flavored lip balm like it's candy.

Over by the janitor's closet, Principal Ishiyama's getting shoved in by my fellow nerds, all of whom are shirtless and covered in acrylic paint from the art room. She's desperately trying to call the police to disengage everyone, but the cell signal got blocked the moment our new 'supreme high ruler of the school' got crowned.

"Children, put me down!"

"DOWN WITH THE SAVAGE!" the entire school population cries before getting back on with their controlled insanity.

Valerie just thinks we're all ghosts and she's shooting at us all with a ball launcher she pulled from nowhere. That's the real reason I'm hiding, since she's currently targetting me.

Why isn't Danny trying to do something to stop this? Well, that's cause he's currently in the gym, (which he froze and turned into his own personal winter playground) belly sliding, hunting a bunch of 'fish' that are really tennis balls, and squawking like a dying bird.

Did I mention Danny thinks he's a penguin? Yeah, he thinks he's a penguin. He somehow got himself into a costume too, and considering he tried nibbling on my hat when this all started to affect him too, that's a mystery in and of itself.

And Sam? Well, remember the 'supreme high ruler of the school' thing?

"REMEMBER TO ALL EAT YOUR TURF-WICHES AND GLASSES OF FILTERED WATER FOR LUNCH, PEONS!"

Yep… Me and the principal are the only normal ones left.

And to think all it took to kick off this mess was a dinky little pocket watch...


	2. Chapter 1- Little PDA Lost

Chapter 1- Little PDA Gone

The only proper way to start the story is if I explain why I was at the electronic store in the first place.

The day before yesterday, Saturday, was a nightmare when it came to ghost fighting, mostly because Team Phantom was more than a little short on members. Sam couldn't come because her parents insisted she come with them to a fancy dinner, Jazz had a mandatory tour for the college she was gonna attend next year, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton went to a ectologist convention in Oregon for a week just that morning, Valerie was out sick, I had a hard time providing back-up for Danny by myself, and because Danny's overall load was so heavy this time, he was extra tired. It was bad enough that he ended up using the Ghostly Wail when Skulker refused to go away just to get the fight over with. It was during our obligatory fifth or sixth fight with Box Ghost in the shipyard when it happened.

Boxy… had a new attack, y'see…

"FEEL THE ALMIGHTY POWER OF MY GIGA BOX!" he cried, making a 'giant' box from lots and lots of smaller boxes. Probably no more than a 3 feet across on all sides. We could've taken it no problem, maybe even destroyed the attack before he even finished it but there was one problem:

"Zzzz…"

Because he was so tired, and it was the Box Ghost we were dealing with here, Danny nodded off for just a minute, but that was all it took. Box Ghost aimed his attack right for him, but before it hit I ran right for my buddy. It might have still been small but it would have hurt; we were in the heavier section of the shipyard.

"Danny, look out!"

My yell woke him up, but not in time, so I had to shove him out of the way. It worked and we got out of the way, and Box Ghost immediately got sucked into the Thermos.

"Thanks, Tucker," Danny told me with a small smile as he turned human, but then I noticed his eyes wandered behind me and widened after. A choked sound came from him and he shook slightly.

"What's wrong, dude?" I asked, tilting my head. He shook his head hard, as if he didn't want me to know what was up. I was about to turn around, but he ran in front of me with a sudden burst of speed.

"H-How about we just go home and relax until Sam gets back? I don't sense anymore ghosts so I think we're in the clear for now!" he said, his voice pitched up ever so slightly with a nervous toothy grin. Everytime I tried looking over his shoulder, he moved so I couldn't see anything, and he kept trying to convince me to leave the area and do something else.

Yeah, he was definitely hiding something. No doubt about that.

"C'mon, if you saw something up, you gotta tell m-" That's when I felt it. My backpack wasn't on me anymore. "Danny…? Where's my backpack…?"

I got my answer the moment his face paled and he gulped. After a solid minute of trying to tell me everything was fine in a desperate attempt to get me to forget about it, he dropped the act and sidestepped out of the way. My backpack fell off when I tackled Danny to safety and Box Ghost crushed it and everything in it with that stupid attack.

Including my favorite PDA.

I picked the backpack up and the broken PDA chips fell out of the bottom. If it was broken like 'Hey, nothing on this is working' I could have used my warranty to get it replaced. But I don't think it covers 'Hey, my PDA got smashed into pieces by a brain dead ghost who likes boxes'! Why they never updated it after everyone learned ghosts exist is beyond me.

"Maybe we can fix it with some glue…?" Danny suggested meekly, but one look at the damage made his lips clamp shut, not saying anything else. Not even I could fix it like this; there was nothing left to fix. I knew he was afraid of how I would react; I never took losing one of my babies well.

And y'know what? This time was no different.

"Cynthia… no…"

"I thought your _fifth_ favorite one was named Cynthia…" Danny muttered to himself. The glare I gave him could melt him down to his core if looks could kill.

"Cynthia! You were so young!" I had just gotten that PDA about a month ago. It was just as good as any phone. And Danny was wrong; my fifth favorite one is Natalie.

I screamed out my frustrations, saddened by my tragic loss.

"WHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

* * *

I sat there mourning my loss for quite a while until it was late and Danny had to pry me from the street.

"I'm sorry for your loss, pal, but... we're kind of blocking traffic." Danny poked my shoulder and I looked up to see cars on both sides of the road honking for us to move. I sighed and got up, picking up my ruined backpack and as many pieces of my PDA as I could before I followed Danny onto the sidewalk. We were walking pretty slowly until someone recognized Danny and he had to turn us invisible and hide us to avoid the crowd of hero worshippers.

"If it makes you feel better, I can get you a new one," he said while we were hiding out in an alley. "If I call Mom and Dad and tell them, I'm sure they'll let you borrow some money."

"You mean it?!" I said a little too loudly, and a group of nearby fans heard us. They scoured the alley before giving up, and Danny nodded afterwards.

That's how we ended up going to the store the very next day, and where we found the cause of this mess.


	3. Chapter 2- Tick Tock, You Got a Clock

Chapter 2- Tick Tock, You Got a Clock

I had no doubt in my mind that Danny's parents would lend me money for a new PDA; they and I were really cool, especially after helping with making all of their weapons be able to not affect Danny (long story short, Mr. Fenton came knocking at my parents' at 1 in the morning one night to get me to help.)

The very next day, we both headed out towards downtown to go to the store. The two of us weren't talking much to each other; Danny was wrapped up listening to an audiobook with his MP3 player. I had to grab him and drag him back to the side walk every time he veered off towards the road, his eyes too fixed onto the book to pay any attention.

"It's for Mr. Lancer, right?" I asked, taking off one of the headphones so he could hear me. He glanced my way and nodded before pausing his reading.

"I have a make-up test tomorrow and I need to finish the book so I'm ready." He yawned and blinked sleepily. "I've sorta been at it all night," Danny admitted.

"You, Sam, and Jazz are the only people I know who can sit down and read for that long without their heads exploding," I said, shaking my head and chuckling at my crazy pal. "Take a break before you burn yourself out, dude. That book's almost 400 pages." Danny sighed and stuffed the book and his MP3 player in his backpack. He had brought his entire locker's worth of textbooks and homework with him. It wasn't like I was gonna take 10 hours in the store.

Now that he doesn't have to stress out over ghost fighting so much since the Disasteroid, all Danny does is stress over school instead. It's been almost six months and none of us can find a proper routine for him. Maybe after all this chaos in the school hopefully blows over, me and Sam can drag Danny over to one of our houses for a break. We're not gonna get homework today no matter what happens, that much is for sure; even Mr. Lancer isn't that cruel.

But I digress. Back to how everything went downhill because that's what you came for...

I went into the building while Danny waited for me outside. I had confiscated his backpack so he couldn't work on homework. He complained at first but decided to try and take a power nap instead, not that it would have been long.

Things go by pretty quick when they don't even deal with what you need anymore.

"What do you MEAN you stopped selling PDAs?!" I had yelled at the top of my lungs, outraged. The lady at the counter looked unfazed.

"Kid, PDAS are becoming outdated. We can't sell them anymore without looking tacky."

"You were selling them not even a month ago! They couldn't have gone out of style so quick like that!"

"Don't feel bad, kid. Regular cell phones are getting replaced too. Now either buy something or get out."

I stormed out towards the exit, crying that the dollar store had better electronics than them. The satisfying sound of a shocked gasp escaped her lips and I couldn't help but chuckle despite myself before becoming depressed. Now where was I supposed to get a new PDA…?

As I looked around, hoping the scenery would inspire me, a glint coming from the small park across the street caught my eye.

"Wha…?" I tilted my head and made sure Danny wasn't going anywhere before checking it out.

In the grass was a small pocket watch, not even 3 inches in diameter. It was covered in shiny gold plating, and the glass was mirror-like and extra reflective. A weird green aura surrounded it and it made me feel tingly the longer I was near it.

The thing was certainly bad news that should have probably been destroyed, or it had to have belonged to a ghost that could have been looking for it, but in my brilliance I didn't think any of that at the time. I thought the watch looked cool and expensive. Might make me a few bucks if I sold it. I told myself I would give it a month so someone could come and claim it and snatched it up, feeling some kind of energy flow through me. A surge went down my spine like a massage chair.

And this is gonna sound weird at first, but my first instinct at the very next moment was to show it off to Danny.

I ran back across the street and gave Danny a few pats on the cheek, and soon enough he woke up.

"You're done already…?" he said sleepily as he stretched. "I thought you would still be in there haggling like you always do."

"They don't sell them anymore," I said simply, and he was much more awake with that one sentence. Are my freakouts really so bad that even Danny's afraid to see them? I gotta start reevaluating my priorities…

"S-Sorry to hear, buddy. Maybe you can go online an-" His eyes fell onto the glow coming from the watch, and he shivered as it was close enough to make his ghost sense go off.

Yep. Option B it was. I'm still hoping that the ghost is a kindly rich person.

"What the heck is that thing? It's giving me goosebumps…"

"It's this really cool pocket watch I found lying in the grass." I lifted the watch up so he could get a better look at it, the first real act after picking up the stupid thing that would kick this whole thing off. "I figured we should wait and see if anyone tries claiming it and then we could sell it and makes some extra ca- Danny?"

I noticed then that Danny wasn't listening to me. His eyes were locked onto the watch with a fixed, blank stare, the pale blue color becoming dull. I waved my other hand in his face and he didn't react, his eyes instead tracking the watch when I put it down for the time being.

"Helloooo… Earth to Danny Fenton! Are you in there, dude?" A string of drool started coming out of his mouth so I resorted to snapping my fingers in his ear. He blinked and woke right up, which caught me by surprise.

"I-I'm sorry, Tuck, did you say something? I think I blacked out for a second there," He said, holding his head like he had a pretty bad headache. It didn't take rocket science to see that the watch hypnotized him without me even having to do a single thing, kinda like what happened with Freakshow only his eyes didn't turn a different color this time. It was like the watch did all the work for me.

Again, I don't know why, but I decided to lie to him and keep him in the dark. I normally would have told him the truth no problem, but I didn't want to.

In fact, I wanted to try it again. It was HIS fault my PDA got smashed with his broken sleep schedule. I would help him 'sleep' alright, I told myself.

Looking back, the fact I was even thinking that should have told me something was very wrong, but I didn't care.

"Yeah, you did pal," I said with fake concern. "You fell back asleep while I was talking. I think you need to go and take a load off." I started pushing him towards my house, in the opposite direction. It would make everything THAT much easier.

"Tuck, Fenton Works is the other way," Danny said, pointing to the other side of the sidewalk.

"I know. I was thinking after you're done napping, we can play some games at my house." He shrugged and didn't question it further.

If you couldn't already tell, Danny was definitely the first one to go.


End file.
